Cooney now says: “76ers spokesperson Michael Preston has confirmed to the Daily News that, despite reports, CEO Adam Aron has not been fired. Adam, who has been associated in the business world with majority owner Josh Harris for over 20 years, also is a minority owner of the team.”

That makes the initial report, from Eskin, and these confirmations, from the Inquirer and Lynam, look quite bad (and yes, I cited the Inquirer’s confirmation earlier):

Now, this may be a matter of semantics. Both the Inquirer and Lynam confirmed that Aron was fired or out as CEO. It’s possible that he is, in fact, out as CEO, but still, as a minority owner or otherwise, with the team. Cooney wrote that his role may change.

Regardless, this is a clusterfuck for the Sixers. These reports came out hours ago and the team initially declined comment. Their PR man, Mike Preston, looks like a dope right about now.

Lord, what a mess. No head coach and seemingly no urgency to find one, no word on whether or not they’ll let Andrew Bynum walk, now this. I wish the Sixers would relocate to Seattle because it’s damn hard to care about this team anymore.

It’s easy to get on Howard’s ass for a bad report, but for Dei Lynam, Bob Cooney AND the Inquirer to have gotten the confirmation on Aron’s supposed firing wrong like he did is too improbable for words. Either the left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing in the Sixers’ front office, or they really did fire Aron, then had a change of heart and denied everything. Of course, being the stupid fucks they are, the Sixers are just making the situation worse by keeping quiet, then again, maybe they’re too damn embarrassed to say anything.